Small Business Marketing Kit For Dummies, 3rd Edition

Chapter 5

Setting Your Goals, Objectives, Strategies, and Budgets

In This Chapter

Defining your business’s vision, mission, and statement of purpose

Planning your business’s goals, objectives, and strategies

Funding your marketing program

D oes the following description sound a little or a lot like you?

You don’t know where to start with your marketing efforts. You don’t know how much you should spend. You don’t know whether you need to hire someone to take on the marketing task. You aren’t sure what you should be saying or to whom. In fact, you aren’t even certain what you’re trying to accomplish with your marketing efforts.

If that description sounds familiar, this chapter is for you, because getting clear about your marketing goals simplifies everything.

After you actually state what you want to achieve, marketing becomes a pretty reasonable task. For example, an accounting firm may determine that it wants to add three new corporate clients over the coming year. A retail establishment may want to gain $200,000 in new sales. A commercial cleaning business may want to take on five more business contracts.

When small business owners are clear about where they want to go, they nearly ...